


press until the bleeding stops

by anxiousAnarchist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, spoilers up to 10/6 update, terezi working out her thoughts, warnings for blood and abusive relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You've braced yourself for the blow, so it doesn't hurt as bad as it could.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	press until the bleeding stops

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings in here for violence and abusive relationships, as well as blood. There's also Vriska talk, if that's something you'd like to avoid.

You've braced yourself for the blow, so it doesn't hurt as bad as it could. It still knocks you flat, lays you out like scattered stones.

If you stay on the ground the blows will keep coming and if you stand up the blows will keep coming. Gamzee is wide eyed and boiling and bloody, too far gone for mercy. Might as well stand. Punishment for crimes committed and services rendered. 

You put your hands up again when you stand. "I'm sorry," you say. "I'm sorry." 

You hurt him, and he hadn't done anything. You chased him and hurt him for selfish reasons, for revenge, for nothing -- just for you. You fought and fought even when he didn't fight back and you are everything you told Vriska she would become. As if you took up her mantle the second your cane's sword (lying useless and accusatorially on the ground) pierced her back. 

But you had to do that. You had to stop her. Didn't you? It must be so. You stood there shaking with conviction that day, utterly certain and poisoned by that certainty. 

After Vriska, after everything ----

You couldn't hate yourself enough, so you had to find someone else to do it for you. To hurt you like you should have but couldn't. With Vriska, _against_ Vriska, you had been strong and clear headed because otherwise she'd kill you and that'd ruin the game. When she was gone there was no game left, no cleverness. Just messes to clean and you were the worst of it. 

You flinch when Gamzee steps towards you again, and he twists your arm so hard it calls up fresh tears. More than the pain you feel such shame, such great bright shame, because parts of you don't want him to stop. 

(Isn't this what a kismesis is supposed to do, after all? What right do you have to complain? You wanted this. You asked for this. You want this.) 

"I'm sorry," you say, again and again. "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry." Your voice is high and thin and there's no rasp to it. 

You're not sure if he can hear you. He is a silent screaming wall, a huge blank. He doesn't talk he never _talks_ you just throw words against him and hope something will stick and calm him and he'll stop. 

"I hate you," you say, almost choking on the words. Spit and blood mingle in your mouth and drip down your chin. You try to wipe your face. You don't know why. You are all the worst kinds of pathetic and he can't see you like this. But his raucous clatter turns to chuckles, because he knows you can't hide your face, don't hate him, not in the right way. Not at all? Wrong. You're wrong. 

"I don't know," you say. "I don't know!" You put your palms on his chest to push him away, but your hands get all slick and grape sour with his blood. You are covered with it. No one can see you like this. "I'm _sorry._ " 

You punctuate your words with the weak and meekest blow you've ever delivered. It's enough to make him shove you until you fall, shock bolting up your tailbone, your elbow jarring as it its the ground. Your skeleton rattles in your sad sack of skin. He rattles above you, content for a moment to honk and snort and do whatever it is he does in his mind. Content to let you stew in this moment, content to savor it. 

Your blood's a hot sun in your moth. Tears burning your cheeks, soaking the blindfold. You can't see. 

But the taste in your mouth is familiar. You try to catch the memory of it, follow it somewhere else. Admixture of drunk drank deep purple and searing salt. The neon of your own blood. You wipe your mouth, scrape it clean. Lick your hand, heel of the palm to ragged nails. Try and see past the haze. 

You remember finding Nepeta's body. 

Several miracles occur in quick succession.

You stand. You straighten your spine, ruler even and blade sharp. When his hand comes to your face, you stop it. You grab his wrist and you don't let go. 

The rest of you is all untidy unfair rage but in the center of your mind is a clear clean space where you can think again, can smell and taste again, and you remember the smell of so many different colors of blood in the air and you feel the way back to your former precision. There are rules, and he broke them -- and maybe you broke them too, but one thing at a time. 

Why did you spare him again? Why hadn't you ended this long ago, _a sweep_ ago? To spare Karkat another fresh horrible grief, maybe. Couldn't cull another last survivor of your small and dying race. Or you weren't strong enough to do it again. Justice has its costs.

You squeeze his arm hard, hard enough that he stops rattling nonsense sounds and looks at you, really _looks_ at you for the first time that day. "What are you doing?" he asks, and his voice sounds like it did back at the very beginning of it all. 

"You have been tried, and found wanting!" you say, bright and chipper and false but it'll do for now. "You cannot escape the long arm of the law forever, Mr. Makara." 

"You're hurting me," he says, almost wheedling, as you try and grapple his other hand away from you. 

"Yes! Very perceptive of you!" 

Anger and shame and (all the wrong sorts of) hate and pity keep threatening to bowl you over, the recursive percussive ring of _it's all my fault it's all my fault i deserve this i'm a monster._ But he killed Nepeta and he killed Equius, he crossed a line and if you couldn't see the way through justice/injustice fair/unfair when the crimes were committed for or to or with or against or by you, you could see this. 

Maybe you were as bad. Maybe you were worse! Maybe you were the scum of the universe ( _yes_ ). You would deal with that later. One thing at a time. You could not settle the score (and what was the score?) between you and Gamzee in one fell swoop, you could not kill him now and live with yourself (even if you wish you could, and hated yourself for wanting it). But you could kick, and you could claw. 

You search for your anger towards him, the dry desperate sudden rush that had carried you all the way here, but you can't find it, just bone weariness setting like wet cement into resolve. Which is stronger. Which is better. 

You still flinch when he looks at you, and you still feel the words "I'm sorry" fighting to come out when he says "Why are you hurting me?" but that's fine. The law is patient. The law will take its time. This weakness is permitted to you. 

He's sounding more like the Gamzee you know by the second (you thought _my Gamzee_ for a second and had to push down another wave of revulsion). You don't understand him, not at all, how he goes from one to the other, the multiplicity of hims, and you don't know what's real. "You shouldn't," he's saying, things about how "you can't, you don't know the way. You never did," and when he calls you "baby girl" you flinch again and he takes the opportunity to throw you back onto the ground. _For the last time,_ you think, _no more_ , and don't quite believe yourself. 

Your right arm hits your cane. Fresh blood is welling up in your mouth. You spit it out, and wrap your hand around the familiar weight of the stick. He's looming over you, and you wish someone else was here to do this for you, to make this decision for you. But no one is. 

"No one's coming for you," he says. 

"I know," you say, and whip your cane up, slapping him upside the head with the flat of the blade. He's disoriented and you take your chance, leaping to your feet and hitting his head so hard he spins backwards, and then his eyes are closed, and you're standing there alone breathless. 

He's not dead. Which is good, that wasn't your intent. Your head isn't clear enough and you aren't strong enough -- things haven't been that way for a long time. Your fingers tighten, knuckles whitening, around the cane and for a moment you have a violent vision of killing him now. But that wouldn't be just, or heroic. Kicking him then, over and over, while he lies prone and can't look at you. But no. You can't. 

You can do what no one else can and what no one else can do for you. The burden only you're able to shoulder -- you can leave.

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to make it clear that, though Terezi blames herself for a lot of what's happening, it's not her fault. I can't think of any ways to explain further (which is in large part why I wrote this in the first place), but she's a victim of an abusive relationship, and if you'd like to hear a more cognizant explanation [here](http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/self-help-brochures/relationship-problems/emotional-abuse/) [are a](http://tnlr.org/about-partner-abuse/what-is-partner-abuse/) [few resources. ](http://womenshealth.gov/violence-against-women/am-i-being-abused/index.html)


End file.
